PLEAS from Chrysler executives for dealers to order more vehicles took on a more urgent tone on Thursday as Vice Chairman Jim Press prodded them in a conference call to take more vehicles, dealers said.

Press and Executive Vice President Steven Landry had urged dealers at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans on January 25 to order 78,000 vehicles this month to help the company prove its viability and qualify for additional government loans.

Dealers said that on Thursday the executives told them in a conference call that they needed to order 15,000 more cars and trucks by Monday to meet the goal, and that 70 percent of the company's 3,300 dealers had participated.

'You have two choices,' Press told the group, according to trade publication Automotive News. 'You can either help us or burn us all down.'

Chrysler would have run out of cash in January were it not for a US$4-billion low-interest loan from the United States Treasury Department. The company must prove its viability by February 17 in order to get another US$3 billion that it needs to survive the worst US auto sales slump in 26 years.

General Motors also got loans totaling US$9.4 billion, with the possibility of US$4 billion more.

Dale Early, owner of Deerbrook Forest Chrysler-Jeep in Kingwood, Texas, said that the tone of the conference call wasn't more dire than it was at the convention or in subsequent visits with dealers around the country.

'I've heard that speech. I think this has been about the fourth or fifth time. He's always made it clear we need orders and revenue to support the viability plan.'

Chrysler sales were down 55 percent in January.